1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a clothing dryer and, more particularly, to blowing fan, fan casing, and motor bracket fixing structures of the clothing dryer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A clothing dryer is an apparatus that supplies hot air to a drying tub, in which objects to be dried, such as wet clothes, are put, to evaporate moisture contained in the objects, and therefore, to dry the objects. Such a clothing dryer comprises: a housing forming the appearance of the clothing dryer; a drying tub rotatably mounted in the housing; an inlet duct to supply hot air to the drying tub; an outlet duct to discharge air out of the drying tub; a blowing fan to generate a blowing force necessary to discharge air out of the drying tub; a discharge pipe to discharge air blown from the blowing fan out of the drying dryer; and a driving motor to rotate the blowing fan and the drying tub.
The driving motor has a driving shaft, to which the blowing fan is directly connected. When the blowing fan is to be disassembled from the driving motor due to a clothing dryer malfunction and then the blowing fan is to be assembled to the driving motor again, it is necessary to fix the blowing fan such that the driving shaft does not rotate before loosening and tightening fixing nuts, by which the blowing fan is attached to the driving shaft. However, there have been proposed no appropriate means to fix the blowing fan, and therefore, disassembly and assembly of the blowing fan are difficult.
Around the blowing fan is disposed a fan casing, which guides the flow of air. The fan casing, which is generally manufactured of injected plastic resin, may shake due to irregular flow of air generated when the blowing fan is rotated. When the fan casing shakes as described above, the blowing fan collides with the fan casing, and therefore, the blowing fan is not properly rotated. Furthermore, the blowing fan and the fan casing may be damaged.
At a base, which forms the bottom of the housing, is disposed a motor bracket to support both sides of the driving motor. However, the motor bracket is fixed to the base by a plurality of fixing screws, and therefore, the fixing of the motor bracket to the base is complicated, which increases the manufacturing costs and decreases productivity.